Talent and competency based human
resource management
Introduction
The organisational life cycle theory postulates that organisations grow, reach maturity,
decline and die (Cameron & Whitton 1981). However, owners, shareholders and man-
agers want their organisations to continue to grow indefinitely. At least in theory, or-
ganisations may continue to grow, mature and avoid decline and death if they can sus-
tainably adopt management models that keep the organisation competitive. With regards
to people management, McClelland (1973) and Peters & Waterman (1982) suggest that
managers seeking to keep their business competitive will always strive to attract, utilise,
and retain the most talented and competent staff in order to continuously keep the or-
ganisation vibrant and prosperous. However, the rigidity of routine laden personnel
management and an inadequate emphasis on talent and competencies under the human
resource management school has led to some advances in search of the best approaches
to managing human capital by filling in gaps in traditional human resource management
principles, techniques and practices.
This chapter provides a brief overview of talent and competency based human resource
management and how it differs from the traditional human resource management in
terms of approach and technique. Therefore, at the end of this chapter the learner will be
able to:
- Examine the main distinguishing features of traditional human resource
management from talent and competency based human resource management. - Use various models to develop employee competency profiles.
- Design competency based instruments for the implementation of human resource
management functions in organisations.